There exists an ever increasing demand for larger data rates, especially in optical communication systems. This demand is being pushed mostly by rapidly growing data centers and the Cloud. The technical difficulty in design and fabrication of wideband photodiodes and laser diodes for both 850 nm Short Reach (SR), and 1.3 μm Long Reach (LR) applications, however, suggest utilizing more bandwidth efficient modulation techniques such as Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) (e.g., PAM-4) and Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) for heterodyne receivers, in which a linear gain/phase Trans-Impedance Amplifier (TIA) is required. Many of these techniques inherently have variations in the incoming light power shined on the photodiode resulting from different losses in the fiber link as well as the fluctuation of the laser output power. Because of this, a Variable Gain Amplifier (VGA) is required in such linear receivers to keep the peak-to-peak output voltage substantially constant. Depending on link budget for different applications, the gain of the receiver might change by 30 dBΩ, resulting in significant bandwidth limitation at high gain, and large peaking at minimum gain. This results in a significant detriment in the quality of the received eye.